|
 This
Size Fits All
By
Mike Hotter
Flaming Lips
At
War With the Mystics (Warner Bros.)
If
fan banter on various indie- rock message boards is to be
believed, there seem to be two distinct schools of thought
regarding Oklahoma City’s psychedelic sons, the Flaming Lips.
Many current Lips detractors still champion their early ’90s
opuses, back when they plied the lysergic squonk aesthetic
perfected by the likes of Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers.
This group of former fans draws the line at 1999’s Soft
Bulletin, and that’s where the rest of us came in. On
Bulletin (as well as its sequel of sorts, Yoshimi
Battles the Pink Robots), Wayne Coyne and company turned
the guitar amps down a bit and summoned up their collective
Brian Wilson. The ambitious albums consisted of odes to survival
and compassion in the face of a seemingly ambivalent universe,
alongside finely calibrated headphone rock that hadn’t been
heard since the days of Wish You Were Here and Physical
Graffiti.
At
War With the Mystics may very well please Lips fans of
all stripes. For one thing, the buzzing guitar riffs are back.
The Sabbathy crunch of “The W.A.N.D.” and “Free Radicals”
leavens the prototypical poignancy of songs like “Vein of
Stars,” where Coyne opines, “If there ain’t no Heaven, maybe
there ain’t no Hell.” Beyond the usual pondering on the vagaries
of existence, there’s an undertone of political discontent
running through the album that is new to the Lips. Under the
catchy robotic bleat of “Haven’t Got a Clue,” Coyne uncharacteristically
threatens his subject with bodily harm—in the context of songs
touting rebellion and antifanaticism, it’s easy to imagine
to whom Coyne would like to give a bop on the snout.
Dave Fridmann is at the production helm again, and while there
are still the occasional electronic squeals bubbling past
the lush beds of mellotrons and Fender Rhodes, this has to
the cleanest-sounding recording of the band’s career. What
makes At War With the Mystics such a pleasurable album
are not the strange sounds employed, but the wonderfully skewed
sense of pop songcraft. The joyous middle eight of “It Overtakes
Me” morphs into Westbound-era Funkadelic, while closer “Goin’
On” is a warm and gorgeous ballad that would fit on one of
the better Wings records. While boasting no instant classics
along the lines of “Race for the Prize” or “Do You Realize?,”
this is a deeper album than its predecessors, and may prove,
in retrospect, to be their most beloved.
Mystics
is essentially the sound of a great band refining what
they are best at, churning out expansive rock music with open
hearts and minds. These days, music like this is sorely needed,
no matter which side you are on.
 Jaco
Pastorius Big Band
The
Word Is Out (Heads Up)
This is the second recording by a big band of flexible personnel
and shared affection for the music of Jaco Pastorius, the
star-crossed bass genius who died derelict and toxic in 1987.
He was only 35. This shiny, listenable disc showcases material
Pastorius developed in Weather Report and the Pat Metheny
Group, as well as his own debut, an eponymous 1976 recording.
It also is an opportunity for Heads Up parent Telarc to extend
the brands of some of its recording artists, like adult-contemporary
saxophonist Gerald Veasley and hyperactive Yellowjackets bassist
Jimmy Haslip.
Despite such market calculations, the music is generally enjoyable
and occasionally exciting, if not particularly in keeping
with the more turbulent, more fusion-oriented atmospherics
of the original. Certain soloists have more personality than
others: Mike Stern puts an interesting twist on Pat Metheny’s
original guitar in “Sirabhorn,” a Metheny tune on which Pastorius
played, and Mike Levine evokes Herbie Hancock’s piano effectively
(and somewhat Monkishly) on the sleek, pell-mell “Kuru/Speak
Like a Child.” The musicianship is clean, professional and
efficient; the band, conducted by Peter Graves, are a model
of competence, and the selections are both eclectic and designed
to please. Everyone from harmonica legend Jean “Toots” Thielemans
to the young bass turk, Flecktone Victor Wooten, gets in on
this act. Blending the Beatles’ “Blackbird” with the title
track was a clever commercial move, too, though the connection
between the two (is it that McCartney is a bassist, too?)
is unclear.
The
Word Is Out is generally sunny; there’s little of the
tension or drama that made Pastorius so memorable on bass
and in his too-short life. It’s a good album to hum to and
travel behind. But it’s not as arresting as it might have
been, because technique trumps personality here.
—Carlo
Wolff
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